THE RULES OF CHOCOLATE

ATTENTION-Please note: The owner of this blog is not responsible for any chocolate binges that may take place after the reading of this posting, but would greatly appreciate an invitation to said binge! Thank you for your kind consideration

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The Rules of Chocolate

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If you get melted chocolate all over your hands, you're eating it too slowly.

Chocolate covered raisins, cherries, orange slices and strawberries all count as fruit, so eat as many as you want.

Chocolate is the fifth basic food group!!

The problem: How to get two pounds of chocolate home from the store in a hot car.
The solution: Eat it in the parking lot.

Diet tip: Eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It'll take the edge off your appetite and you'll eat less.

A nice box of chocolates can provide your total daily intake of calories in one place. Isn't that handy?

Chocolate and Love speak the same language.

If you can't eat all your chocolate, it will keep in the freezer. But if you can't eat all your chocolate, what's wrong with you?

If calories are an issue, store your chocolate on top of the fridge. Calories are afraid of heights, and they will jump out of the chocolate to protect themselves.

Chocolate is poetry on the tongue.

Chocolate has many preservatives. Preservatives make you look younger.

Q: Why is there no such organization as Chocoholics Anonymous?
A: Because no one wants to quit.

Put "eat chocolate" at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you'll get one thing done.

Chocolate is a health food: Chocolate is derived from cacao beans. Bean = vegetable. Sugar is derived either from sugar beets or cane, both vegetables. And, of course, the milk/cream is dairy. So eat more chocolate to meet the dietary requirements for daily vegetable and dairy intake.

BRITISH ARCHEOLOGISTS LOOK TO NORTH SEA FOR ANCIENT SETTLEMENTS

American Archeologists are not the only ones searching the sea bed for signs of prehistoric travelers, hunter/gatherer villages. What fantastic discoveries will they make, not only for what they are searching for, but things that they may happen upon. ********************** Lost world warning from North Sea

By Sean Coughlan BBC News education How a homestead might have looked in the flooded area Archaeologists are uncovering a huge prehistoric "lost country" hidden below the North Sea. This lost landscape, where hunter-gatherer communities once lived, was swallowed by rising water levels at the end of the last ice age. University of Birmingham researchers are heralding "stunning" findings as they map the "best-preserved prehistoric landscape in Europe". This large plain disappeared below the water more than 8,000 years ago. The Birmingham researchers have been using oil exploration technology to build a map of the once-inhabited area that now lies below the North Sea - stretching from the east coast of Britain up to the Shetland Islands and across to Scandinavia. 'Terrifying' "It's like finding another country," says Professor Vince Gaffney, chair in Landscape Archaeology and Geomatics. Prehistoric rivers, hills and valleys are mapped off the east coast It also serves as a warning for the scale of impact that climate change can cause, he says. Human communities would have lost their homelands as the rising water began to encroach upon the wide, low-lying plains. "At times this change would have been insidious and slow - but at times, it could have been terrifyingly fast. It would have been very traumatic for these people," he says. "It would be a mistake to think that these people were unsophisticated or without culture... they would have had names for the rivers and hills and spiritual associations - it would have been a catastrophic loss," says Professor Gaffney. As the temperature rose and glaciers retreated and water levels rose, the inhabitants would have been pushed off their hunting grounds and forced towards higher land - including to what is now modern-day Britain. The rising water levels began to remake the coastline "In 10,000 BC, hunter-gatherers were living on the land in the middle of the North Sea. By 6,000 BC, Britain was an island. The area we have mapped was wiped out in the space of 4,000 years," explains Professor Gaffney. So far, the team has examined a 23,000-sq-km area of the sea bed - mapping out coastlines, rivers, hills, sandbanks and salt marshes as they would have appeared about 12,000 years ago. And once the physical features have been established, Professor Gaffney says it will be possible to narrow the search for sites that could yield more evidence of how these prehistoric people lived. These inhabitants would have lived in family groups in huts and hunted animals such as deer. The mapping of this landscape could also raise questions about its preservation, says Professor Gaffney - and how it can be protected from activities such as pipe-laying and the building of wind farms. ******************* More information and graphics about this research at the University of Birmingham site: http://www.iaa.bham.ac.uk/research/fieldwork_research_themes/projects/North_S...

COASTAL MIGRATIONS FOR EARLY AMERICA

Years ago, I read a book relating the stories of several archelogists who were being riduculed for their research. They were saying they had found 12,000 year old to an extreme of 35,000 year old acheological sites in the Americas. Another held that there was a migration across the Atlantic (Clovis/Solutrean stone tools), another that there was a coastal migration from Siberia to the Americas, and another that was proposing the theory that there was another water migration into the Americas from the south and working its' way up South America. And of course the land bridge migration across the Bering Straight.

I have always thought we, as "modern" people, do not give our ancient kin the credit they deserve. The research that Bob Ballard and others are now carrying out with the most modern of equipment is going to uncover some theory changing finds. Oh to have a time machine to travel back and see our ancestors. . .

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Archaeologists explore ocean floor for clues to early coastal settlement

by Cindy Weiss - April 21, 2007

University of Connecticut

Anthropologists in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are identifying new sites to study archaeology that are fathoms, not feet, under the surface.

Anthropology professor Kevin McBride and doctoral candidate David Robinson are scoping out early coastal human settlement sites, now under water, that could reveal clues to how the Americas were settled.

Graduate student David Robinson emerges from the US Navy’s NR-1 nuclear-powered submarine. The sub is used for underwater research.

Photo by David Robinson

McBride says early submerged sites may yield evidence of how the earliest coastal residents lived and how they got here.

McBride, who is also director of research at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, was co-director and Robinson, a professional underwater archaeologist, one of the lead field archaeologists on a research expedition off Galveston, Texas, in March.

During the week-long expedition, teams of scientists from several federal agencies and research institutions explored the submerged landscape around the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, 115 miles off the Texas-Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico.

The area, one of 13 U.S. national marine sanctuaries, was chosen because of its interesting geology and biology and its potential to contain preserved landforms with signs of some of America’s earliest inhabitants.

The expedition used the U.S. Navy’s NR-1, the nation’s only nuclear-powered submarine dedicated to underwater research.

The tools of exploration also included a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), and state-of-the-art “telepresence” technology that enabled scientists and educators on shore to track from thousands of miles away what was going on in the Gulf.

McBride monitored the expedition from Mystic, along with co-director Robert Ballard, professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island and president of the Institute for Exploration at Mystic Aquarium.

Looking for preserved elements of an old landscape, they surveyed 50-plus miles and found a six mile-long area about 300 feet under water that showed signs of what could be the intact remains of an old coastline and old river channels that would have led from shore to sea.

It’s an area that holds promise for more detailed analysis, he says.

At the height of the last glaciation, more than 20,000 years ago, the sea level was 350 to 400 feet lower than today, so what is now under water was then exposed land.

The NR-1 is able to sink down and roll along the ocean floor on truck tires, allowing scientists to look out through portholes and visually examine features from only a few feet away.

They could also map the sea floor with side-scan sonar while cruising 30-50 feet above the bottom.

“We were essentially going for a walk on the sea floor in an area where there had been an old coastline,” says Robinson.

The area was too deep for scuba diving, but the researchers were able to use the sub and the ROV’s high-definition video camera and sub-bottom profilers to see above and below the surface of the sea floor, learning more about its features than if they were diving.

McBride and Ballard monitored the work in real time, 24-hours a day, and produced 35 broadcasts for middle school students across the country.

Robinson will introduce students to underwater archaeology during this summer’s UConn Archaeology Field School, which is managed by McBride.

Robinson, who holds a master’s degree in shipwreck archaeology from Texas A & M University, is focusing his doctoral research at UConn on submerged settlements.

His interest stems from work he has done during the past decade in Maryland and currently with the Public Archaeology Laboratory in Rhode Island.

He has also traveled to Denmark several times during the past five years to work with some of the world’s experts in Stone Age underwater archaeology from the Danish National and Viking Ship museums.

While McBride and Robinson are developing research opportunities in underwater archaeology, Nicholas Bellantoni, associate professor of anthropology and state archaeologist, is interested in the management and preservation of sites.

Bellantoni hopes to explore the Long Island Sound for native sites in collaboration with UConn’s National Undersea Research Center (NURC) at Avery Point.

With a rich maritime history, Connecticut is a prime place to explore offshore, he says.

He expects there are probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of underwater archaeology sites, including shipwrecks, plane wrecks, and early Native American settlements in the Sound.

Bellantoni says the prospects for underwater archaeology in Connecticut include tourism as well as science.

He envisions creating “diver parks,” where recreational divers could visit and study historic shipwrecks.

He is working with NURC on topographical maps and locating archaeological sites in the Long Island Sound.

“We have not been able to pay enough attention to our submerged coastal resources,” he says.

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If you are interested, listed below are some links to other Deep Sea Archeology sites:

http://web.mit.edu/deeparch/www/expeditions/1997Skerki/SkerkiVehicles.html

http://www.whoi.edu/sbl/liteSite.do?litesiteid=2740

http://www.therafoundation.org/Projects/woodsholeoceanographicinstitute/archa...

TO BOLDLY GO. . .

Truth is stranger than fiction. Some of you may have seen “How William Shatner Changed the World” , a funny and interesting show about how Star Trek has inspired inventors and scientists. Well it seems Mr. Shatner has done it again. I can imagine, some time in the future, our great great grandchildren may see the first Star Ship, moving out of space dock, and named Enterprise.

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Space shield may protect astronauts

Larry O'Hanlon Discovery News

Thursday, 19 April 2007

A superconducting ring on board a spacecraft could produce a magnetic field that protects astronauts from cosmic rays, just like the plasma shield from Star Trek (Image: RAS)

UK space scientists are teaming up with fusion researchers to develop Star Trek-like deflector shields that may one day protect astronauts from cosmic radiation.

The shields might envelop interplanetary spaceships and protect the astronauts inside from deadly radiation storms.

"Unless you solve this [radiation] problem, you're going to have a bunch of dead astronauts," says researcher Dr Ruth Bamford of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.

Scientist are borrowing the idea of using a magnetic field to deflect the charged particles spewed by solar flares and interstellar space from the Earth itself.

Our planet deflects the worst solar radiation and particle storms with its naturally generated magnetic field, the magnetosphere.

"Nature has put this solution forward," says Bamford. "It has a certain elegance that's appealing."

Part of that elegance is how light and inexpensive magnetic shields would be compared with massive metal shielding. Metal shields would cost a lot to launch into space and would require more fuel to be moved around once there.

A magnetic shield has the additional benefit that it won't become radioactive after years of being bombarded by radiation, something that happens to metal shields, Bamford says.

Joining forces with fusion scientists could be the key to advancing the new technology, she says, because the fusion people are expert at creating and controlling magnetic fields inside a reactor.

Bamford gave a presentation on the new collaboration this week at the UK's Royal Astronomical Society National Astronomy Meeting in Preston.

"The first thing we are approaching is proof of principle," says Bamford, referring to the need to prove that a spaceship-sized magnetosphere is feasible and would block radiation.

Eventually experiments will have to move out of the laboratory and into space, of course, which is where the work really gets expensive.

"There are several stages in between," she cautions.

Other researchers agree that magnetic fields are a logical approach to protecting astronauts outside Earth's magnetosphere.

"It's absolutely a viable choice," says the University of Washington's Professor Robert Winglee, who has been promoting the idea for a long time.

Winglee points out that the shields would also have other uses. They could protect astronauts on the surface of the Moon or Mars, where only spotty, remnant magnetic fields exist, he says.

The collision of radiation with a magnetic shield could also be used as a super-efficient way to accelerate a spacecraft on very long voyages, says Winglee, somewhat like a sail on a ship.

"I'm glad to see others are working on it," he says.

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For Tami For Jewels

For John For Darryl

Is everyone happy now?

CHOCOLATE KISSING

Being a lover of chocolate and proudly possessing an addiction to chocolate, that being said, I have a bit of trouble agreeing with the outcome of this experiment. And why have to chose between two of the most fantastically wonderful experiences we can legally enjoy. I say just share some chocolate before, during, and after kissing, Brings a whole new meaning to sweet kisses, yes?

Chocolate 'better than kissing' BBC News on line Monday, 16 April 2007, 12:36 GMT 13:36 UK

Chocolate came out top in the test When it comes to tongues, melting chocolate is better than a passionate kiss, scientists have found. Couples in their 20s had their heart rates and brains monitored whilst they first melted chocolate in their mouths and then kissed. Chocolate caused a more intense and longer lasting "buzz" than kissing, and doubled volunteers' heart rates. The research was carried out by Dr David Lewis, formerly of the University of Sussex, and now of the Mind Lab. Chocolate beats kissing hands down when it comes to providing a long-lasting body and brain buzz Dr David Lewis Dr Lewis said: "There is no doubt that chocolate beats kissing hands down when it comes to providing a long-lasting body and brain buzz. "A buzz that, in many cases, lasted four times as long as the most passionate kiss." He said substances in chocolate were already known to have a psychoactive effect, but that allowing it to melt on your tongue could be the secret to maximising the buzz. The volunteers, all aged in their 20s, had electrodes attached to their scalps and wore heart monitors during the two tests. The researchers compared their resting heart rates with those during the chocolate and kissing tests. Longer lasting effects Although kissing set the heart pounding, the effect did not last as long as that seen with the chocolate, which increased heart rates from a resting rate of about 60 beats per minute to 140. Couples were monitored while they kissed and while they ate chocolate The study also found that as the chocolate started melting, all regions of the brain received a boost far more intense and longer lasting than the excitement seen with kissing. Although women are generally thought to be bigger fans of chocolate than men, the research found the same reactions to chocolate in both sexes. Dr Lewis said: "These results really surprised and intrigued us. "While we fully expected chocolate- especially dark chocolate - to increase heart rates due to the fact it contains some highly stimulating substances, both the length of this increase together with the powerful effects it had on the mind were something none of us had anticipated." You'd think people would be shy about kissing in a laboratory, but that wasn't the case at all Cadbury spokeswoman Psychologist Sue Wright said: "Chocolate contains phenylethylamine which can raise levels of endorphins, the pleasure-giving substances, in the brain. "It also contains caffeine which has a stimulatory effect on the brain. "This would explain why chocolate can give people a buzz, and why people can become addicted to it." The research used a new 60% cocoa dark chocolate from Cadbury, and a spokeswoman for the chocolate makers said: "You'd think people would be shy about kissing in a laboratory, but that wasn't the case at all. We're not talking about a quick peck here." The Mind Lab is funded by members of the food industry, although no firm can be linked to any individual study.

CAVES FOR RENT OR LEASE

The Paleolithic hunters who painted the unsurpassed animal murals on the ceiling of the cave at Altamira had only rudimentary tools. Art is older than production for use, and play older than work. Man was shaped less by what he had to do than by what he did in playful moments. It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities. Eric Hoffer

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Somethings never change, we still look for roomy abodes, running water, views, morning sun, patios, hmmmmm wonder how much input the Cavewoman was given? Most realtors I know says it is the woman who really makes the decision even if she LETS the husband think it was his!

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Cavemen Chose Caves on Five Criteria

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

April 9, 2007 — House buyers today usually peruse properties with a checklist of desired features in mind. This aspect of human behavior has apparently not changed much over the millennia, according to a new study that found prehistoric cave dwellers in Britain did exactly the same thing when choosing their homes.

The recently released three-year-long survey of approximately 230 caves in the Yorkshire Dales and 190 caves in the northern England Peak District determined that people there from 4,000 to 2,000 B.C. selected caves based on at least five criteria.

Andrew Chamberlain

Location, Location, Location
The Sevenways Cave is shown, located in the Peak District National Park. A new survey of British caves concluded that prehistoric dwellers preferred caves with larger entrances, deep passages, ones perched higher up, facing east or west and with flat areas out front.

There was a higher frequency of prehistoric usage of those caves with larger entrances and deeper passages, also of caves that were higher in altitude and caves with entrances that faced towards the east or to the west," co-author Andrew Chamberlain of the University of Sheffield’s Department of Archaeology told Discovery News.

He added that most of the caves linked to human activities tended to have level areas outside of the entrances.

Funded by the English Heritage’s Historic Environment Enabling Program, Chamberlain and his colleagues focused on caves in the two chosen English districts because recreational spelunkers often visit these areas and concern about cave conservation there is high. They excluded artificial caves, mines, tunnels, grottoes and passages revealed by mining, quarrying or hydrologically, as for sink holes.

The archaeologists discovered that the Peak District attracted more prehistoric cave users than the Yorkshire Dales, suggesting that today’s "location, location, location" real estate mantra might have also been true 6,000 years ago.

"The (Peak District) region is a more productive area for agriculture today," said Chamberlain, "and the same may have been true in prehistoric times and thus there may have been more people in the Peak District."

He said it is also a possibility people there simply utilized caves more. Chamberlain explained that caves served a multitude of purposes aside from housing the ancients. Early people also conducted ritual activities and performed burials in them.

Andrew Chamberlain

Cave With a View
Thor's Cave is shown, located in the Peak District National Park. The cave was one among approximately 230 caves in the Yorkshire Dales and 190 caves in the northern England Peak District surveyed for a new study that analyzed what kinds of caves drew the most prehistoric traffic.

Sometimes caves were even like roadside motels, where both human and animal travelers would stop in for a night or two of rest before hitting the road again.

The team believes their compiled data can help other researchers in the future to predict what sorts of caves might contain archaelogical artifacts.

Carol Ramsey is a noted anthropologist and cave scientist based in British Columbia, Canada. She described the new cave survey as "an absolutely wonderful project — a great multi-faceted approach and a very useful exercise in terms of managing and conserving an important finite resource."

To Ramsey's knowledge, no comparable survey of caves, especially one directed towards caves with archaeological potential, has ever taken place in British Columbia.

"I’d dearly love to see aspects of it adapted for use in B.C. — especially the landscape archaeology/predictive modeling," she said.

As for Chamberlain and his team, they identified many unexplored caves throughout Britain, particularly in the Yorkshire Dales, during their research. They hope to investigate these caves soon.

YOU'RE FROM CALIFORNIA IF. . .

If we cannot laugh at ourselves, then we are taking ourselves way too seriously. My sister who escaped, I mean moved, to the great state of Missouri sent me this. Enjoy and laugh, we need the relief.

You know you're from California if:

1. Your co-worker has 8 body piercings and none are visible.

2. You make over $300,000 and still can't afford a house.

3. You take a bus and are shocked at two people carrying on conversation in English.

4. Your child's 3rd-grade teacher has purple hair, a nose ring, and is named Flower.

5. You can't remember . . is pot illegal?

6. You've been to a baby shower that has two mothers and a sperm donor.

7. You have a very strong opinion about where your coffee beans are grown, and you can taste the difference between Sumatran and Ethiopian.

8. You can't remember . . is pot illegal?

9. A really great parking space can totally move you to tears.

10. Gas costs $1.00 per gallon more than anywhere else in the U.S.

11. Unlike back home, the guy at 8:30 am at Starbucks wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses and who looks like George Clooney really IS George Clooney.

12. Your car insurance costs as much as your house payment.

13. You can't remember . . is pot illegal?

14. It's barely sprinkling rain and there's a report on every news station: "STORM WATCH."

15. You pass an elementary school playground and the children are all busy with their cells or pagers.

16. It's barely raining outside, so you leave for work an hour early to avoid all the weather-related accidents.

7.If you drive illegally, they take your driver's license away. If you're here illegally, they want to give you one.

18. Both you AND your dog have therapists, psychics, personal trainers and cosmetic surgeons.

19. The Terminator is your governor.

20. You can’t remember. . .! Is pot illegal????

TAXES

It is that time of year, again! Flowers are blooming, the weather is getting warmer, the grass is getting greener, Trees are full of little colorful birds singing among beautiful smelling blossoms, Robin's are in the meadows, and THE TAXMAN COMETH!! Like most people, I do not mind taxes, but, and it is a big BUT, I would feel much better about it, if the Congress, those who are given control of the purse strings by The Constitution, would spend OUR money much more wisely, perhaps having the mind set that THEY are spending THEIR own money, and not someone elses'.

BATAAN DEATH MARCH 66 YEAR ANNIVERSERY

66 Years ago, on April 9th, 1941 Luzon Defence Force surrended to the Japanese. On April 10th the Death March started and hell arrived. We must never forget these young men and the price they paid for us to have the freedoms we take for granted today. And we must never forget the young men and women in uniform who are continuing that tradition.

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History Department at the University of San Diego

http://history.sandiego.edu/GEN/st/~ehimchak/death_march.html

Bataan Death March

Follow the Bataan Death March

In March 1942, Homma began his plans for the American and Filipino troops who would become Prisoners of War. He planned on moving them to Camp O'Donnell, about one hundred miles away. According to the Japanese military, this was not a long distance, and their troops could easily accomplish it within a few days. However, those on Bataan were not in good physical health. Since January they had been on half-rations or less. During the surrender agreement, King told Homma that he had more men than the Japanese planned for and that they were ill and undernourished. But Homma ignored these facts, plus King's offer to drive the troops to the prison camps. According to the Japanese, once the POWs were in their captivity, they could do with them as they wished, and King's requests were disgraceful. (47)

"U.S. prisoners on Bataan sorting equipment while Japanese guards look on. Following this, the Americans and Filipinos started on the Death March to Camp O'Donnell in central Luzon. Over 50,000 prisoners were held at this camp. A few U.S. troops escaped capture and carried on as guerrillas."
From: Hunter, p. 45

From the day of surrender on, the POWs would be harshly beaten and killed for the slightest or no reason at all. Officer status did not provide protection either. First the troops were searched. Any prisoner found with Japanese souvenirs was executed immediately, because the Japanese believed the soldier must have killed a Japanese soldier in order to get it. Many soldiers had found these items, such as money and shaving mirrors. Their own personal property was usually stolen as well. (48)

"Articles Carried on Death March. Crucifix and other possessions of Lt. Col. Dyess. The tobacco can was his billfold."
From: Dyess, between pp. 96-97

The Bataan Death March.
U.S. National Archives
From: Daws, p. 229

The Bataan Death March began at Mariveles on April 10, 1942. Any troops who fell behind were executed. Japanese troops beat soldiers randomly, and denied the POWs food and water for many days. One of their tortures was known as the sun treatment. The Philippines in April is very hot. Therefore, the POWs were forced to sit in the sun without any shade, helmets, or water. Anyone who dared ask for water was executed. On the rare occasion they were given any food, it was only a handful of contaminated rice. When the prisoners were allowed to sleep for a few hours at night, they were packed into enclosures so tight that they could barely move. Those who lived collapsed on the dead bodies of their comrades. For only a brief part of the march would POWs be packed into railroad cars and allowed to ride. Those who did not die in the suffocating boxcars were forced to march about seven more miles until they reached their camp. It took the POWs over a week to reach their destination. (49) Those on Corregidor would suffer the same fate as their fellow soldiers on Bataan did as they too were transferred to Bataan.

"The infamous Death March from Bataan in 1942, showing thinning file of prisoners carrying comrades who dropped along the way."
Photo by: Wide World Photos, From: Buchanan, between pp. 108-109 photo #7

"The Bataan Death March-the end of the road."
U.S. National Archives, From: Daws, p. 229 *********************** PBS PRODUCTION http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/sfeature/bataan_capture.html Capture and Death March


"A terrible silence settled over Bataan about noon on April 9," remembered General Jonathan Wainwright, the man who had assumed MacArthur's command after he left for Australia. On that day, Luzon Force commander Gen. Edward King, without informing Wainwright, surrendered to the Japanese. Numbering more than 70,000 (Filipinos and Americans), it was the largest American army in history to surrender. Some refused to become prisoners and fled, joining a significant resistance movement which grew to perhaps 180,000 guerrillas throughout the Philippines.

While the Japanese pounded Corregidor (which would surrender on May 6), they led their prisoners on a forced march out of Bataan. Before the "Death March" was over, those who survived would march more than sixty miles through intense heat with almost no water or food. Somewhere between 5,000 and 11,000 never made it to Camp O'Donnell, where fresh horrors awaited.

Edwin Ramsey: On the 9th [of April] we noticed a cessation of bombing and strafing of artillery. The morning of the 10th, there were a number of escapees from the town of Mariveles --soldiers who did not want to surrender, who reported to the squadron commander, who was with my platoon, that surrender had been made the day before, on the 9th. The Squadron Commander told us...we're missing in action at the moment. You have the choice of going down and surrendering or taking off and trying to get out of Bataan. Joe Barker -- Captain Barker, who was Troop Commander of the unit I was with, Troop G of the 26th Cavalry -- and I had already discussed that we were not going to surrender. So, we were able to grab a couple of cans of salmon and and a couple of hands full of rice and we took off and went directly up Mount Mariveles ...to the main line of resistance, which was the Pilar-Bagac road. When we got to that, we crawled up to that, during the late afternoon and waited until nightfall.

At that time, the Japanese troops were moving across there, in a steady stream. So we timed them and waited until we could see that there was an interval between the troops that we're passing and the ones that were following, and it was already night time. In between one of the units we dashed across the road and laid down in the high grass on the other side and waited until daylight, the beginning of daylight, in the morning. It's fortunate that we didn't try to go on because right within a matter of 50 yards of where we were, there was a large unit of Japanese asleep and we could have wandered right into them. But, at any event, we crawled on through there and made our way on up the peninsula, paralleling what had become the "Death March," about one kilometer in from the road.

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Richard Gordon: I didn't come down with a surrender group. They caught me actually two days after the surrender took place. First thing I did was receive a good beating. And everything I had in my wallet, in my pockets was taken from me. And as I was marched down that road, where they captured me, I passed my battalion commander, Major James Ivy, and he had been tied to a tree and he was stripped to the waist and he was just covered with bayonet holes. He was dead obviously. And he had bled profusely. He had been bayonetted by many, many bayonets. And that's when I knew we had some troubles on our hands. We were in for deep trouble. And they brought us down into a staging area and put me in with the rest of the thousands that were assembled on the side of the road, and that's where I spent my first night.

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Alfred X. Burgos: Well, when Bataan surrendered, they gathered all of us in Mariveles, Bataan, and they told us that we had to march all the way to San Fernando Pampanga because we were all going to be accounted for and taken to prison camps. Of course, the Americans that were there were made to walk on the right side of the street to distinguish them from the Filipinos, and on the left side were all the Filipino troops. Unfortunately, as you see me, I was mistaken very many times as not being a Filipino. And always I was yanked out and put in the American group, and there of course I got slapped so many times for crossing, but I knew very well, inside of me I said, "I am sure they are going to treat the Americans in a worse way than they're going to treat the Filipinos." And all along they started saying, "Well, you Filipinos, you know, you should have been on our side, why are you fighting for these Americans, anyway. There is no chance of them winning this war."

Interviewer: Did you witness cruelty on the Death March?

Alfred X. Burgos: Oh, yes. For example, if you should not want to walk anymore -- let's say you were tired -- well, I've seen them shoot walking prisoners of war -- actually be shot. Or if you tried to get food which was thrown by the civilians to the walking military, the Filipino military, that not only endangered you, but the one who was giving the food or throwing the food to you...Well, those that they could catch, they'd just shoot them there.... If you could not keep up with the group in the Death March, rather than slow the Death March, they'd get rid of you by shooting you.... Oh, they bayoneted people, they shot people, and if they think that you were delaying the Death March, you're dead.

Interviewer: Did you see anybody else die or get killed?

Richard Gordon: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. A number of times. As we were marching out of Bataan, men were very desperate for water. And they would break ranks and the Japanese wouldn't tolerate that. And they'd run to the side of the road to get some water. And along the side of the road would be caribou wallows, which were puddles of water that the caribou used to wallow in ...so they'd keep away flies and mosquitos. And the Americans and the Filipinos both would actually lap up that water like a kitten would lap up milk. And of course the water was contaminated. So many of them became very ill as a result of drinking that. Several who broke ranks ...would be shot by the Japanese who were part of that detail. I saw a beheading of a Filipino who had broke ranks and ran for that type of water. So killings, yes, we saw a number of them along that march at different places.

...But one of the problems we had on that march was the lack of discipline among the troops, the American and Filipino troops. Nobody knew anybody. And because of that, that caused many problems. As an example, I volunteered for a detail to carry an injured officer who had broken a leg. And we had four people carrying that litter. We went so far and we couldn't get a soul to replace us and give us a break and let someone else take over. We carried that gentleman all day long in some of the hottest weather I've ever been in. And when it came night time, everyone went their own different way. Nobody would, would relieve us. So that man was left lying alongside the road. I never knew what happened to him either. The lack of discipline on the part of the troops led to much of this.

Interviewer: What was the Death March like?

Leon Beck: It depends on the guards you had over you. Some of the guards were not too abusive and some were very abusive. They would harass you, they would make you line up at daylight, get in a column of fours, usually 100 to 125 men, in a column of fours and keep you standing at attention until the sun came up and got real hot.... They would start you double-timing until the line got stretched out. The sick, lame and lazy, we called them, fell back. Then, they'd close you up again and they might keep you standing another hour in that hot sun.... There are ways you can rest one leg and shift your weight, it's not too noticeable and you can slough off and rest a bit. But, if they caught you at it, it meant a butt stroke with a rifle or a beating over the head, and the people that fell down and didn't get up, you'd hear a shot fired and you'd look back and there lays a body behind you. But they wouldn't let you go back and take care of him, even at the artesian wells, when the prisoners would break and run for the water. They'd shoot indiscriminately into the crowd and some got shot and laid there. You couldn't go take care of them ...At night, they put us in barbed wire enclosures, just a single string of barbed wire around the trees and they'd herd you in there. There was no latrine facilities, you defecated right where you were and it got pretty bad and stinky come morning and you couldn't walk around. You had to stay there. Because of the mess, everybody was sick with malaria and dysentery....

Some, seeing that the Japanese were not going to abide by the Geneva Convention in treating their prisoners, escaped into the jungles of Bataan. Most joined the guerrilla movement.

Leon Beck: I don't think there's any glory in being a prisoner of war, and I'd made up my mind, when it looked desperate ...I told everybody: "I'm not going to march in the prison camp. If I have to die, I'm going to die in the attempt or I'll die free. But, I'm not going to go in prison camp, no glory in being a prisoner." We were taught [that] you had a moral, legal, and ethical responsibility if you were ever captured, that you should make an attempt to escape and if that attempt was successful, you had to continue to resist to your enemy, until such time as you could re-join friendly forces. That's the way it was taught to us, every time they read the Articles of War to us. So, I've tried to fulfill that. I enlisted voluntarily and I felt I had a responsibility and I tried to fulfill it.

Interviewer: How did you escape?

Beck: The road that we were marching on was the main road from Manila all the way into Bataan, to Baguio, which was the summer capital. And, as we came in to the town of Guagua, there was a tide river, that paralleled the road. And nobody would go with me, I'd been begging for many days for people to attempt an escape with me. And, they just flat refused.... [Finally] I said "hit it." I just rolled off of the road and got into the edge of the river and there's a lot of palmetto brush and weeds and one thing or another growing and as soon as the group marched on past me, and got a ways down the road, and out of sight and there wasn't anything in sight, coming up the road, I went up swam and waded across that river and got out into a cut rice field and I could see a shack over there...[Beck was aided by some Filipinos here, then later joined other American guerrillas.]